PERSONALITY ATTRIBUTIONS BASED ON SPEECH SAMPLES OF CHILDREN WITH REPAIRED CLEFT PALATES

Objective:This study examined whether or not assumptions made about pe rsonality characteristics based on speech samples differed for childre n with repaired cleft palates (CP) versus unaffected children, Design: Audiotapes of speech samples were presented in random order to blind raters, Patients/Participants:The subjects were 20 children (In female s, In males) with repaired CP and 16 control (i.e., unaffected) childr en (8 females, 8 males). All children were 8 to 12 years of age, Cauca sian, living in the St. Louis area, and lower-middle to upper-middle c lass,The raters were 20 (13 females, 7 males) 6th grade Caucasian stud ents who attend a private school in the area, Setting: Raters heard ta pes in a group setting, but with individual headphones, in their schoo l's cafeteria, Main Outcome Measure: Each speech sample was rated (7-p oint Likert scale) by each student rater on a variety of personality c haracteristics based on the ''Big Five'' personality factors, Results: A factor analysis of the items revealed a two-factor solution, althou gh the factors were highly negatively correlated, No significant diffe rences were found between ratings for the CP sample and the control sa mple for either factor scale (ANOVA, p = .93; p = .67), Similarly, whe n the two factors were combined to form a single factor, no significan t differences were found between the ratings for the CP sample and the control sample (ANOVA, p = .79). Conclusions: Overall, it does not ap pear that children differentially associated personality characteristi cs based an speech to children with repaired CP versus unaffected chil dren, in the absence of visual input.